Reel FX Creative Studios Benefits from Next Generation Render Pipeline Based on Qube!

(April 14, 2008)

DMN Newswire--2008-4-14--PipelineFX, makers of Qube!?ó render farm management software for film production, game development, and digital media education, today announced that Reel FX Creative Studios is leveraging the power of Qube! to manage their rendering work and speed up the render pipeline for current and upcoming projects.

Reel FX Creative Studios, founded in 1993, is an integrated group of award-winning design and production studios that produce animation, visual effects, entertainment content, commercials, and conceptual designs. Reel FX Creative Studios uses the latest and most reliable technology and tools to liberate the creative and production process, which they call creative at the speed of thought. One such tool they have used for the past five years is Qube!.

Reel FX Creative Studios is currently using Qube! at their Dallas studio to manage the rendering on the animated feature film Open Season 2, scheduled for release this year. Reel FX is proud to be involved this year in the animation for Open Season 2, said Chuck Peil, VP of Business Development at Reel FX Entertainment. A high quality level and a seamless process are critical for this picture to be on par with the original film. Qube! has been a critical tool in maintaining this seamless process.

Reel FX Creative Studios has also used Qube! on consumer product work for Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda and Shrek The Third. Qube! has also been used on Enchanted, Spy Kids 2 and The Wild, and on gaming projects like Transformers and the Da Vinci Code.

Five years ago, Reel FX Creative Studios was an all-Windows environment and was using another queing software. At that time, they started the transition towards using Linux and needed a render manager that could work across multiple operating systems, which is when they made the change to Qube!. Reel FX Creative Studios now uses Qube! to execute Python scripts and uses it in conjunction with Maya┬«, NUKE┬«, and Mental Ray┬« in a primarily Linux environment. The artists customized the Qube! interface, both standalone and within Maya. They also integrated Qube! into their in-house project management software that was created by their application development team to help automate their data processes and speed up work.

Qube! is integral to our pipeline at Reel FX, said Harry Michalakeas, Director of Pipeline and Technical Supervision at Reel FX. We use it not only for managing renders, but also for executing most of our other pipeline processes. In the five years we've been using it, we've found that Qube! has provided the functionality we've needed, as well as proving to be a robust solution during times of intense farm usage. Additionally, the Qube! API allows us to extend the functionality ourselves whenever something is not available right out of the box.

We've found that Qube! has held up very well despite the incredible pounding we have given it - over 2.5 million jobs over five years, said Michalakeas. During peak times, we completed up to 100 shots per week. On Everyones Hero, for example, we were finalizing 90 to 100 shots per week during crunch time. At anything from 20 to 50 layers per shot, that's 2,000 to 5,000 renders in a single week, not including fixes and re-dos. Realistically, any software will have occasional issues over such a prolonged period of heavy usage. I feel that during those times, PipelineFX has been responsive and helpful, and cared about making sure everything worked for us.

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About Reel FX Creative Studios: Reel FX Creative Studios is an award-winning creative studio where accomplished artists and preeminent technology converge resulting in extraordinary animation, visual effects, title/design and visual development for the entertainment industry. Comprised of just over 270 people, Reel FX has 140 artists including animators, modelers, lighters, riggers, creative directors, art directors, editors, illustrators, motion/title designers and visual effects artists. With digital studios in Dallas (75,000 sq ft), Santa Monica (16,000 sq ft) and San Francisco (15,000 sq ft), the Reel FX team is able to collaborate with clients at any stage of the creative and production process from early design and development through production and post. Reel FX understands the power of technology and has invested in the best tools available to support their creative team. They are an alpha test site for Discreet Logic utilizing Smoke, Inferno, Flame and Fire in their seven visual effects/compositing suites featuring real-time hi-def capabilities. The render farm is comprised of 1,200 processors. Their application development team has created a proprietary production management pipeline tool called INSIGHT that manages their production pipeline real time, allowing their clients visibility and transparency to production and costs at any stage of the production. Reel FX merged with California studio Radium in 2007, creating a collaborative environment of proprietary technologies that are key tenets to their creative and production philosophies. See their entertainment work at www.reelfx.com and award-winning design and commercial work from their design studio Radium at www.radium.com. Reel FX Entertainment and Radium are a part of Reel FX Creative Studios.

About Qube! and PipelineFX: Qube!?ó is the leading enterprise-class render farm management system for film production, visual effects, game development and digital media education. Qube! has custom pipelines for creative applications like Autodesk┬« 3ds Max┬«, Autodesk Maya┬«, NUKE?ó, SOFTIMAGE┬«|XSI┬«, Shake┬«, Adobe┬« AfterEffects┬«, Pixars RenderMan┬«, Eyeon┬« Digital Fusion?ó and many more. Qube! is IBM ServerProven┬«, database driven and operates in Linux┬«, Windows┬« and Mac OS┬«X environments. PipelineFX, with headquarters in Honolulu, Hawaii, and offices in San Francisco and San Diego, CA and Vancouver, B.C. was founded in 2002. Qube! is used by world-class film and game studios and post houses including South Park Studios, Electronic Arts, Vanguard Animation, Rainmaker Animation, Disney Interactive Studios, Starz Entertainment, Imagi, Reel FX, and Attitude Studio. Qube! is used by schools around the world including the School of Visual Arts in N.Y., Goebelins School in Paris, Carleton School of Architecture, Full Sail, the University of Advancing Technology, Pratt Institute, the University of Hawaii-Academy for Creative Media, and Harvards Graduate School of Design. For more information, please contact Richard Lewis, VP of Sales of PipelineFX: richard@pipelinefx.com, Phone: 866-856-7823, 1000 Bishop Street, Suite 509, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96813, USA. Also visit www.pipelinefx.com.

Trademark Notice: Qube!?ó and Qube! Remote Control?ó are trademarks of PipelineFX, LLC. All other trademarks are the property of the respective trademark owners. ┬ę2008 PipelineFX, L.L.C